


Changes

by leonheart2012



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Awkward situations, First Dates, First Kiss, Lonely Noctis, kinda angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 22:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonheart2012/pseuds/leonheart2012
Summary: Ignis is going on a date and because of reasons, Noctis has a bad day.





	Changes

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t move this appointment, Noctis. Not everything is about you.”

“But...can’t you just tell me what it is you’re doing?” Noctis whines, leaning against the counter of the kitchen, sticking out his bottom lip.

Ignis sighs and turns back to his young charge. “No.”

Noctis deflates and flops onto the couch. “You’re so _boring_.” He pulls out his phone. “Fine, I’ll find someone _else_ to hang out with.” He starts texting people, but every one of them is busy. He groans and throws his phone at the couch opposite him.

Clearly taking pity on him, Ignis comes over and places a hand on his back. “If you eat your vegetables, I’ll tell you what I’m doing.”

Instantly perking up, Noctis sits up and grabs the plate that Ignis has bought him, gritting his teeth through the horrible taste of green mush. When he’s done, Ignis takes the plate and, from the kitchen, explains that he’s going on a date.

“A _date_?” Noctis asks, completely shocked. “With who?”

“_Whom._” Ignis corrects automatically while drying his hands on a tea towel. “It is really none of your concern who takes my fancy, Noctis, even though I am most certain you do not know her.”

Noctis flops back onto the couch and groans again, burying his face in his hands. This Thursday is going to be the most boring of his life so far.

“So you’re planning on what, spying on them?” Gladio asks as they finish up training. He sighs and puts his hands on his hips. “Noct, that’s not a great thing to do. Not only does it betray Ignis’ trust, you’re being nosy and a horrible friend.”

“But-”

“Don’t do it.” Gladio interrupts, giving him a stern look. “Find something else to do.”

“And what about you? What are you doing?”

Gladio sighs and zips his bag closed before slinging it over his shoulder. “Taking Iris out to the movies before we have dinner at her favourite restaurant. It’s her birthday next week, remember?”

“Oh yeah. I still have to get her a present.” Noctis looks pleadingly at Gladio. “Please, tell me what she wants. I don’t want to suffer like last year.”

The taller shakes his head. “Honestly, I have no idea how you have any friends at all. Just _ask her_ what she wants.”

Noctis groans, but drops the subject. He doesn’t speak until they’re just parting ways. “So you’re sure you have no idea who he’s taking on a date or where they’re going?”

Gladio lets out a groan of his own and turns to glare at Noctis. “I _don’t_ and even if I _did_, I wouldn’t tell you. _Stop_ thinking about it and get a life. If you want to know what it’s like to date someone so much, get a girlfriend of your own.”

_Get a girlfriend of your own_. It’s not such a bad idea. Noctis tosses and turns, thinking about who he could ask on a date. Prompto has his photography competition, and even if he were free, he’s a _boy_, Iris is going out with Gladio, and she has a boyfriend of her own, Luna is miles away, locked up in Niflheim, and the only other women he knows are his teachers and his friends’ mothers, and he’s not about to ask any of _them_ on a date.

Finally, he decides on a rather pretty girl in the grade below him, and asks her out the next morning.

She accepts instantly, blushing and giggling and just generally being _gross_ about it, but Noctis has a date, and something to do on Thursday, and so he is content.

They end up going to a nice restaurant in the upper city, where Ralen – Noctis _thinks_ that’s her name – gazes at everything in awe. They get seated immediately, everyone recognising Noctis as the crown prince and wanting to make a good impression, and whats-her-name looks so pale Noctis is slightly concerned that she’ll faint, or vomit, or both.

He peruses the menu mostly as a courtesy to the staff, before ordering grilled salmon. Raisin opts for a salad, and Noctis tries hard not to screw up his nose in disgust.

Rayvyn’s conversation is rather lacklustre, having none of Prompto’s wild enthusiasm and good humour, lacking entirely of Gladio’s stinging one-liners and dirty humour, and completely bereft of Ignis’ witty comments and scathing disapproval. She picks like a tiny bird at her salad and twitters about school and her friends, seemingly having no life outside of studying and playing hopscotch with her peers.

Noctis rests his chin on his hand in a way that Ignis would definitely berate him for, and scans the afternoon patrons of the restaurant, only to see the familiar blonde hair of said adviser. He blinks, then hunches down, averting his gaze in the hopes that Ignis won’t see him.

Raewyn frowns and follows where he’d been looking. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just...uh...go on.” He tries, smiling at her. “You were talking about...physics?” He tries, but jusdging by her scowl, misses the mark completely.

“If I was boring you, you should have just said so.” She says heatedly, and then flushes, apologising, but this outburst perks Noctis’ interest more than anything else she’s done or said since he met her.

And so he decides to goad her into doing it again. He sighs and picks at his fish with his fork. “Yeah, sorry, you kinda lost me when you started talking about maths.”

“That was the first thing I talked about.”

“Was it? Huh.”

A flash of something passes beneath the surface of her calm exterior, and Noctis can smell the tang of wet scales freshly plucked from the depths. He almost has her. He just needs to-

A classic eye-roll, followed by his trademark ‘whatever’, and she’s his, scowl fixed on her face, hand reaching towards her water glass, and then-

He’s wet, drenched from head to waist in water, as her expression goes from angry to horrified. Noctis smiles and starts laughing...until a very familiar shadow falls over his chair, which instantly shuts him up.

“Noctis.”

He shrinks down into his chair and looks up into Ignis’ face. The whole world seems to have fallen silent. Raven has gone bone-white, her hands covering her mouth as she whispers apologies, a waiter coming over to fan her face and ask if she needs to sit down. Noctis’ eyes travel to the person standing just behind Ignis, who is...definitely _not_ a woman. His gaze snaps back to Ignis’ and he swallows. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this angry.

Ignis turns away from him, talking to his date in a low voice, apologising and asking if he would be alright with a reschedule, only to be turned down, and then he pays for both pairs of meals with a frankly ridiculous amount of money, before finally turning his attention to the girl Noctis came with.

“I beg your pardon, my dear, but I need to take Noctis home now. I can ask one of the guard to pick you up if your parents are preoccupied?”

“Uh, no, that’s okay. I’ll just...” She scampers out of the restaurant, and Ignis returns his gaze to Noctis, who has been pinned to the chair the entire time, his guts coiling in fear.

“We are leaving.” Ignis says, and Noctis wouldn’t have been able to protest even if he’d wanted to, because Ignis is already walking out of the restaurant.

The drive home is completely silent, as if there’s a pact to not discuss this until they’re in Noctis’ sound proofed apartment. Noctis’ thoughts are going by so fast he can’t really catch any of them, just snippets of them hovering in his mind before zipping away again. His heart is beating so fast he thinks it’s going to explode, and his ears are ringing.

Ignis leads the way up to the apartment, and Noctis contemplates running away, but he knows that this conversation is inevitable, and that no amount of running is going to change that. And so, with heavy feet, he ascends the stairs just behind his friend.

As soon as the door closes, Ignis turns to him and, instead of yelling as Noctis had expected, he sighs, goes to the living room and sits on the couch. Terrified, Noctis lowers himself onto the couch opposite and waits, but the anger he’d expected never comes.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and opens his mouth to speak. “I had no idea you’d be there. Gladio suggested going on a date myself, and I chose her. I wasn’t trying to ruin your date. I was just bored, and then she lost control of her facade, and I wanted to see the real her, so I tried to break through, like I did with Prom, but it kind of...backfired a bit, and-” He stops, realising that she’s never going to want to speak to him again. She’s probably sobbing into her pillow, and the revelation hurts, because he’d never wanted that. He’d just wanted to have something fun to do on the day where all his friends were busy. “I’m sorry.”

Ignis sighs again and closes his eyes, his stony face giving way to some emotion. Noctis knows it’s nowhere near everything he’s feeling, but at least he knows that the anger has passed, for the most part, and he doesn’t have to keep holding his breath.

“I know you wouldn’t purposefully ruin my date. And I’m sorry for lying to you. It...” For what Noctis is sure is the first time, Ignis runs out of words, and the experience of this moment shatters everything Noctis thought he knew about his adviser. “I am so used to lying to my parents about this aspect of me, as they do not think it right for one man to lay with another. I apologise for thinking the same of you. I also apologise for ruining your date, and I hope that you can smooth things out with her.” Having said his piece, he stands and leaves, the door shutting quietly behind him.

Noctis can’t move from the couch for a long time. He feels hollow, like he’d witnessed too much, causing his brain to burst, and he needs some time to collect the pieces splattered over the walls of his apartment. As the minutes tick by, he thinks of what it is that he’s missing, and he realises, after about an hour, that it’s his parents, and so he goes to the Citadel.

King Regis looks old. His father looks old. He now stands with a cane, walks leaning heavily on it, the brace on his knee not quite doing its job anymore. He still looks regal. He’s still an attractive man, still has a youthful glint in his eyes, but his face is withered and weary, his hair greying.

He smiles when he sees Noctis.

“My son.” He says. “What’s brought you to me this evening? You’re hardly ever here anymore.”

Noctis shrugs. “I...” He rolls his bottom lip into his mouth, turns away to the chair where he used to sit on his father’s lap to hear him read stories. “I missed you.” He walks around the room, trailing his fingers against the desk, the leather chairs, the bookshelves, the fireplace. “Have you...been well?” It sounds disjointed, jarring, and he winces, still not facing his father.

In their conversation, he doesn’t mention that he can’t stand to be here, to see his father’s decay into old age, knowing that he’ll suffer the same fate all too soon. He doesn’t tell him about the evening he’s had, or about his friends. It feels too much like a business transaction; a few words to establish a context, followed by the emotionless exchange, and then the parting of ways. He endures his father’s hand on his shoulder before leaving, his chest hurting. He doesn’t know what he hoped for in the visit, but whatever it was, he didn’t get it.

And so he goes to Prompto.

“-was so cool! And there were, like, hundreds and hundreds of really great photographs, but they still picked _mine_ to be in the top five, and if I get to the next round, I might be in the final competition!” Prompto says animatedly, beaming, and Noctis is finding it hard to stay sulky.

His heart is beating at a more acceptable rate, and his lips are actually curling upwards, and it feels like at least one thing in his life is the same.

Prompto turns to face him fully with a strange expression on his face. “Noct?”

He has no idea where it comes from, but in the next moment, he’s kissing him, their faces pushed together, lips connected for just a second, and silence descends onto the room. Prompto blinks in shock, and Noctis sits back, quite possibly equally as stunned.

“What...was that for?” He asks finally.

Noctis shrugs. “I dunno. I’ve...had a pretty weird day, so I’m not gonna question it.” He flushes and traces patterns on his knee. “Can you...forget it happened?”

“Uh...sure.” He turns back to his game and starts pressing buttons, but the air is heavier, thicker, and Noctis curses himself for ruining yet another relationship.

Just five minutes later, he sighs and starts to get up, but Prompto pulls him down again.

“Wait! Sorry, I...look, you know you can talk to me, right?” He waits for Noctis’ nod. “Right. So talk to me. What happened?”

So Noctis tells him about the awful day he’s had, and Prompto listens, and when he’s done, Prompto pulls him into a hug.

“Sounds like no fun at all. Hey, maybe you should stay the night?” And just like that, everything’s okay again.


End file.
